You’ve died and been sent to Hell, but you’ll be damned if you’re going to take it lying down. Taking inspiration from Dante’s Divine Comedy, 33 Immortals tasks you and 32 other souls to rise up, fighting through the three realms to rail against God’s judgment in a quest for eternal life instead of damnation.
Right off the bat, Thunder Lotus’ game is an acquired taste. While on the surface level in gameplay and visuals it has some of the hallmarks of Hades and other roguelites, it’s a very different feeling experience that draws on MMOs and the amassed co-op nature of their Raids. You can’t do much on your own, even battling against the most base monsters would take you an age and easily see you overwhelmed by a few, and this feeling of fighting damage sponges with minimal feedback to the combat is a bit of a turn-off. Team up with other players, though, and the game feel is transformed, your power actively amplified and your various abilities able to shine.
Having started in Early Access with four weapons, there’s now eight in total to unlock and upgrade at launch, slotting into the archetypes of tank, DPS, range and support. Each has a basic attack, a heavy attack and a special ability, and there’s a really nice interplay between these simple moves.
The tanky Sword of Justice builds up a Justice meter with the basic attack, which can power the Heavy Slash to potentially stagger enemies, while the Guard special ability blocks incoming damage and slams down a Gavel Bash counterattack when hit. It’s easy to pick up and master, while the Daggers of Greed need more precision to dash in and out of combat, the Bow of Hope needs you to recall your limited quiver of arrows (though they do more damage on the way back). The newer weapons bring slightly more advanced elements, like the Hooks of Greed needing more timing for its parry system, or needing to mark an enemy for the Crossbows of Pride, so that the basic attack generates ammo for the machinegun-like heavy.
Each weapon also has a specific co-op ability, the Sword of Justice able to give a bubble shield, the Crossbows of Pride a spinning area of effect damage, the Staff of Sloth blanketing part of the world with torpor-inducing fog that slows enemies by a huge amount.
I love the way that the game really engenders gentle co-op play, even when joining in solo. Unleashing a co-op ability requires you to place it and wait for one or two others to join a simple shaped formation with you, lending them the shared buff if not an offensive ability. But it’s more than that. To charge up the ability at anything more than a snail’s pace, you need to be co-striking enemies alongside other players, and that also builds up a damage boost if you’re able to consistently dish out damage together – this is most relevant for the bosses.
As you venture into the Inferno, Purgatorio or Paradiso, you’re also pushed to play together in various ways, beyond simply not dealing much damage on your own. There’s an opening window of time where the lobby can fill up to its maximum size – 33 for Inferno, 22 for Purgatorio and 11 for Paradiso – during which you roam around, battling enemies, and find chests to open and amphora to smash. This lets you level up through the run, so you can beef up your damage, health or empathy (to improve you co-op ability strength).
You’ll likely be roving around with other players anyway, but secrets and objectives that require teamwork will bring you together. There’s ancient sigils and blessings that need multiple players to trigger, there’s locked chests guarded by a tougher enemy, and ‘Unique Elites’ can spawn in with over-the-top attack patterns that really need a concerted effort form half the lobby to take down. More structurally, there’s the Torture Chambers that open up with up to six players able to venture in to fight an arena challenge and earn Relics to buff their abilities further.
It builds up to Ascension Battles to earn the right to fight the boss for each region, facing off against Lucifer, Adam & Eve, and the Wrath of God itself. They’re imposingly large fights the first few times through, with multiple attacks to learn to evade and to neutralise. Since the early access and the full release, there’s enough people that now know what they’re doing that these fights are relatively easy, to the point that you might not really need to know what you’re doing. There’s a bit of a shock to the system when stepping into Purgatorio and the difficulty ramps up, with fewer players there to cover for you if you’ve not yet fully understood a weapon or progressed enough more generally.
33 Immortals is definitely a slow burn, and a grind. I’ve played through Inferno countless times now, and I’m sure Lucifer is sick of the sight of me. Progression isn’t especially imaginative. Feats are handed out by Beatrice and need you to perform certain tasks like completing Chambers 5 times with a particular weapon, or finding Ancient Sigils in a map 3 times, or just killing a thousand monsters. For all the Perks, weapon upgrades, and general stat increases as you complete Feats, the Ordeals system then drags some of those back as you apply them.
I think it’s really that slow crawl through each region’s opening and the repetition that will turn people away, but for me, it makes 33 Immortals a bit like comfort food. I don’t have to think too hard, I can just make a little bit of progress, check off daily tasks, and maybe (if I’m feeling adventurous) tackle a tougher realm.
There’s a nice effort at world building, drawing from the Divine Comedy. Beatrice is the leader of the rebellion, while Charon, Dante and Virgil have complimentary roles for things like cosmetics and managing perks. Each time you talk to them they muse on a particular theme or topic. After a while, I’ll admit, I’m just skipping through to head back into the action.
33 Immortals captures some of the tone and feel of large scale MMO raiding parties, distilling it within a more bitesized roguelite scheme and some clever co-op mechanics. The repetitious nature of this will turn some away, and there is a shelf life to how much there really is to do here, but it’s also part of the appeal to gradually power up and (when you feel like it) push on to tougher realms.
